


more

by tajiis



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: F/M, Plotless, in which mikasa quietly explores her feelings and thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-25
Updated: 2015-03-25
Packaged: 2018-03-19 12:13:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 659
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3609672
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tajiis/pseuds/tajiis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eren was always the more ambitious one.</p>
            </blockquote>





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_Mikasa stares at the ceiling above her bed and thinks, about Eren_ (everything) _, about life and titans and what it means to be an Ackerman._

It’s more than a debt.

She finds that hard to explain to others, finds it hard to stress over and over again, that her love for Eren is more than some _debt_. That’s what it always comes back to, really, and it frustrates her. Once they hear that Eren saved her, the knowing smiles come into place, the slow, arrogant nods, as if they really understood _how_ and _why_ she loved Eren. That her affection was some prize, that she protected him out of some misguided obligation; even more insulting, that she would _grow_ out of it. 

You didn’t _grow_ out of people like Eren. The idea was just as offensive as it was laughable. 

She tried to stop him, but that didn’t keep him from becoming more. 

_She takes her scarf off, wrapping it gently around the bed post, taking care to keep the worn edges away from the sharp wood. She kicks off her boots -- they’re worn now, she needs new ones, but she’s always been one for nostalgia -- and lies back down on the bed, this time curling in on her side._

This sort of life was the kind where you don’t make it to old age. Friends don’t die of natural causes, you don’t always get to bury the bodies _whole_ , or hell, even bury them at _all_ , sometimes you have to make do with memories and little tokens of love that are too much and not enough at the same time, and Mikasa has _seen_ them. Mothers, fathers, _children_ who have nothing left of their loved ones aside from small trinkets that don’t offer comfort or hold the grief at bay. But that’s better than nothing.

She’s lost Eren once, twice, how many times now? He falls and comes back to life, the eternal martyr, more worthy of a religion than the _walls_.

He’s more. 

_She squeezes her eyes shut. Sleep comes, but regretfully, and she doesn't dare to dream._

She knows that she will die. A deeper, darker, more realistic part of her knows that Eren will die, too. Maybe sooner than later. Maybe they have years-- or perhaps, only one of them has years. She doesn’t know, and she won’t claim to. All Mikasa is sure of, is that she will _protect_ Eren. That a day won’t go by where Eren doesn’t understand his worth, that he’s loved and that he taught her how to love (how to live) when existence itself seemed hopeless. If Eren is her sun and her stars, then Mikasa is the earth he stands upon, and as long as she’s by his side, she’s content with that. 

Now isn’t the proper time for Eren to love, isn’t the proper time to explore _her_ love (as if she hasn’t inspected it already, a shiny babble that never shakes her interest), but that doesn’t stop her from clutching her scarf closer and imagining (wishing, hoping) it as Eren’s hand, Armin’s, that the three of them were children again, feet dangling near the river’s edge and opalescent hearts, fingers brushing skin innocently and flipping pages of forbidden books.

That’s all she needs--

\-- all she wants--

a little bit of peace, with her, Eren, and Armin. 

All she ever wanted. 

Armin wanted to be free. 

Eren wanted to be more. 

She doesn’t like to think of the cost of their wishes. 

_Daylight whispers in her ears, and she stirs._

One day, all she might have is the scarf and the fact that Eren saved her life, over and over, everyday. In some distant, terrible future, where her love and her strength aren’t enough to save him (that’s what her nightmares are made of), where her steel and blades are too fragile to resurrect him, the constant, defiant martyr. 

But he’s more. 

Always.

_She opens her eyes._


End file.
